


Money can't buy you back the love that you had then

by sophiahelix



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-11
Updated: 2007-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 13:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And Jim didn't say anything to her, but it wasn't like she said all that stuff to him looking for an answer anyway."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Money can't buy you back the love that you had then

Sandy mud sucks at her feet as she wades deeper, little sharp bits of seagrass poking into her tender feet. Pam wonders about leeches, about minnows, about frog eggs buried deep in the muck. Although that's wrong, she realizes; it's late spring and they've already spawned, because she can hear the chorus of croaks all around her, rich and resonant in the night air. She's missed that sound.

It's still quiet here, away from everyone. It was quiet by the fire too, but that was just because the roaring in her ears drowned out everything, the crackling of the torches and the sizzling of the coals, the voices of the people nearby. She thinks her feet might have sizzled a little too, and she rubs them deeper in the comforting mud, moving to where it's cool and thick and the water reaches the bottom of her pant cuffs, creeping up towards her knees.

Her heart's still thumping like crazy, banging against her ribs, and she's not entirely sure what she just said. Nobody died, though, and the lake didn't boil and the stars didn't fall and everyone looked a little embarrassed and a little guilty, but they were listening to her for once.

And Jim didn't say anything to her, but it wasn't like she said all that stuff to him looking for an answer anyway.

She starts wading again, because if she stands still she starts thinking, and then she worries about going back and facing Phyllis and Oscar and Ryan, people whose opinions she cares about, and facing Karen, who has every reason to hate her, who always has. The rule was no hurting Karen, but she blasted through that one tonight, and maybe it's OK, for once, after all the months she's spent biting back the loneliness so Karen didn’t have to.

The water feels a little too cold on her goosebumpy legs now, and she turns to the shore to see if they're packing up yet. They're not, but a figure is sliding down the dune, too tall to be anyone else but Jim, his head ducked low.

Pam waits until he gets close enough to the edge to hear her, not moving any closer herself. Her heart just keeps thumping, but she's got that same still, wild feeling, like she can say anything she wants. Lightning can strike twice, she thinks.

He gets to the edge but doesn't go any further, keeping his shoes on.

"I didn't mean to hurt Karen," she says, her voice calm and clear.

Jim shakes his head. "She's OK."

"She didn't care that you were coming to talk to me?"

"She's not – it's not like that. She knew I needed to say some things."

Pam nods. There's a silence, long enough that she worries she's going to come down to earth again and the magic will end. She isn't ready yet to give up being someone who says what she feels.

"It can't be that way again, Pam," he says. "I wasn't your best friend. I was in love with you."

"We could be friends now. Wouldn't Karen … there's no reason it has to be anything more."

"No," he says. He's standing so still, arms at his sides, and under his baseball cap she can't see his face at all. "What you miss – that wasn't friends. That was us… that was _me_ being something more. All the time. And I can't be that for you and be with Karen at the same time."

She feels kind of sick, but it wasn't like she expected anything from him. She didn't expect anything at _all_ today, except maybe sunburning her shoulders and having to eat Michael's idea of s'mores, which inexplicably include dollops of chocolate pudding. A little voice in the back of her head says she should be grateful for whatever happened, because it was better than being endlessly, endlessly quiet.

"Then I'm really sorry," she says at last. "Because I miss that."

"What do you think that means?" he asks, and there's a little heat in his voice. "What do you think you're really missing?"

She isn't falling for that, not tonight. This morning she would have ducked her head and avoided the question, or flat-out lied. Now her feet are still stinging and she's ankle-deep in mud and Jim is standing on the shore, far enough away that she has to talk loud for him to hear her.

"I know what it means," she says. "And you know."

He shakes his head, hard enough that she sees his hair moving beneath his cap. "I don't. You've made it clear you only wanted to be friends."

"I don't think I've made anything clear," she says, and for the first time she has the urge to move closer, speak more softly, because this is the hard part, the thing she couldn't say in front of everyone else. "I should have been honest a long time ago, and I know that, but I couldn't until I knew what I wanted."

"Do you?" he asks after a moment, his voice low. "Know?"

She takes in a big breath, letting the oxygen go to her head, willing back the feeling she had just before she ran through the fire. "I want to feel the way I did when I was with you, back before you moved to Stamford. I want Karen not to smile at you like you're her whole world. I don't want to be lonely, and I want to take back this whole year except it made me figure out a lot of things about myself, so I don't know. I want stuff to be easy, Jim, and it isn't, and I thought that maybe if we could be friends again I could have one thing in my life that made me happy, even if it wasn't what I really wanted."

He's quiet for a long time. The water creeps farther up her jeans, making her shiver.

"Why can't you say it?" he asks.

"Would anything change if I did?"

"I don't know, everything changed when I said it."

"You made it change, Jim. You moved and met Karen and turned into someone I don't even know anymore. Sometimes I wonder if you really even thought I was going to say yes."

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"I mean you had it all set up, your exit plan. It's like you needed me to say no so you could have permission to go, but you'd already decided."

Jim turns his head, looking away from the campfire, over the lake. She's shivering harder now, and she wraps her arms around herself. This is like purging a fever, like cleaning out an old cut.

"Jim – "

"Did you hear what I said earlier?"

"When?"

"When Michael was making Dwight and me give speeches."

She shakes her head. "I was getting ready to run over hot coals."

"I'm applying for that job at corporate. The one Michael wants."

"Oh," she says. "Well. Congratulations. Not much competition."

"Karen's applying too."

"So – you're both moving to New York? No matter which one of you gets it?"

He doesn't say anything.

"Then why are you out here?" she asks, her voice cracking, and she isn't sure how much longer she can keep doing this. "Are you… do you want me…"

"Pam," he says, so quiet she can barely hear him.

"Do you want me to tell you not to go?" she asks, her heart in her throat. She's lost out here in the dark, just hoping she gets it right. "What – would you stay if I asked you to?"

Jim nods, his head hung low.

"I don't have the right to ask you that," she says, and suddenly she's angry. " _You_ don't have the right to ask me to ask you. We're not – we aren't friends. You should be asking Karen."

"She wants me to go."

"Of course she does. You're her boyfriend. You should go where she goes."

"I don't have to live my life around her. I told you, it's not like that."

"Oh, but I don't think she was OK with you coming down here to say this stuff to me. You were supposed to say we couldn't be friends and you were moving to New York, right? Haven't you been here a little too long?"

"Just stop it," he says, sounding really angry. "You don't have to be mean about Karen."

"Jim, what was the first thing I said when you came down here? Everything … every _single thing_ I've done or not done this year was to keep from hurting her."

"I thought it was to keep from hurting me."

Pam sucks in a breath, feeling it in her stomach. Her mouth is dry, and it's like she's run out of words, angry or otherwise.

"It's not just Karen," she says at last. That feeling is coming back, like whatever she says is true and she's saying it because she has to. "If – if she was all that was between us, you'd break up with her and I wouldn't care so much. She's not Roy. There's something else."

"What?" he asks, and he sounds so tired, it hurts.

She shakes her head. "I don't think it's just one thing. Maybe it's – how much it hurt seeing you with someone else every day. How it's like you haven't even seen me at all for months. It's like we've forgotten how to be close."

"Last summer," he says, heavily. "I made myself forget."

She closes her eyes. "Yeah." There's a lot she could say, but it all feels like excuses, and they're at the end of the line now.

"Pam?" he asks. "Are we really – "

"I thought I wanted – I thought we _could_ – "

"Yeah."

"Fuck," she says, the word good and strong in her mouth. "My feet really fucking hurt."

"Wow," he says. "I can't believe you actually did that."

"Me neither."

"You and Dwight. The only two people in the office with any guts."

"Thanks," she says, like it's a compliment and not a joke, and maybe it is.

They're quiet for a minute, and she wishes she could see his face. But he's too far away, and it might be better this way.

"You should head back," she says. "I'll come up in a minute."

"I'll see if Dwight has any more of that burn cream left. Although I think he used up most of it on his crotch."

She makes a face. "Great."

"Pam?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

After everything, that's what makes the tears start in her eyes, and she fights against the tightness in her throat as she says, "Me too."

Jim turns and trudges back up the sand dune, and Pam walks around for a while longer in ever-widening circles, stirring up the mud underfoot, getting her jeans soaked, letting her tears fall. Later she'll climb onto the bus, not looking at anybody, and take the seat Phyllis saved for her, falling asleep on the ride home, her bare feet covered in band-aids and her face pressed against the window.


End file.
